Health and Wellness through Embodied Dialogue: The Work That Reconnects as a Theory and Method

Workshop Presentation
Vincent Brown  

The purpose of this workshop is to introduce participants to the Work That Reconnects (Macy & Brown, 2014; Macy and Johnstone, 2014) as a theory and model for group dialogue as a means of creating personal and social well-being. Conformity to social and cultural conditioning has created a kind of psychic-numbness in many people, especially men, called “Alexithymia, meaning without words for emotions, where men and women have trouble identifying and expressing their feelings” (Levant & Richmond, 2016). Turning this observation around, in order to heal this condition, people must learn how to self-inquiry, connect with and give voice to their feelings, emotions, joy, concerns, and fears. Personal and social fragmentation has made it difficult for communicating with each other, and because of the need to be right “the very attempt to improve communication leads frequently to yet more confusion, and more consequent sense of frustration inclines people ever further toward aggression and violence, rather than toward mutual understanding and trust” (Bohm, 1996). Gurdjieff (2012) suggests our social and cultural conditioning, self-knowledge is beyond us for time being, so we must be satisfied with self-study, or self-observation. Krishnamurti (1969) states that the journey to inner truth is a pathless land and the only tools we need are honest self-inquiry, awareness, and attention. If an inclusive healthy society based on personal and social well-being is to be realized people need tools and practice in discovering and speaking their truth and begin building trust. Demonstrating this is my goal.